Quote from the mayor of the village (in southwestern France),: "He really was good at school.... He did his homework, he was well dressed, he was clean and he was always on time. Kids like that fly under the radar. We don’t worry about them."
January 28, 2024
"To the annoyance of his neighbours, he let off steam by running around the flat or jumping up and down on the bed..."
"... making a noise that reverberated through the building’s flimsy walls. It was this, Béatrice recalled, that led her to learn what was really going on in flat nine. Seeing him walking past one day, she told him off. 'Doesn’t your mother tell you to stop jumping all the time because it makes the building shake?' she demanded./ 'No, I live on my own,' he replied./'How’s it possible at your age?'/'It’s just like that,' he told her."
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28 comments:
If you don't come home one night, your cat will assume that you've been eaten by a larger animal and start worrying about how he's going to pay the rent.
That is some story, Mother of the Year. What a perfect character parable of the Vichy French, and also (you might say), of the Resistance. Nice find, thanks a lot for sharing it.
Did his family fly off to America for Christmas?
A favorite book of mine in my tweenhood was Michael O'Halloran by the (problematic now, pretty progressive for her time) author Gene Stratton-Porter. It was about a newsboy of indeterminate age - I initially thought he was maybe 12, but now I think maybe 14-15 - whose mother, before her tuberculosis death some years prior, drummed into him how to take care of himself as well as a pathological dread of orphans' homes.
He ends up adopting a younger (and bedridden) child like a stray cat, and the rest of the story is how he realizes that he's now head of a family and his former life plan isn't going to be sufficient for the two of them. He's especially worried about the coming winter. It's set in the early 1900s in a city in the Midwest, probably Indiana.
It made me wonder - and I still wonder this - how often this actually did, or apparently does, happen.
Un-gated version of the article.
When I was a child, I ran away with my sister from my home in Greenwich (my parents apparently didn’t appreciate my sister enough) and lived in The Met for awhile. A lot happened that my memory is pretty foggy about, but I do remember riding back home in some rich lady’s Rolls Royce.
At least I think that was me.
- Rafe
Hugo?
In 1931 Paris, an orphan living in the walls of a train station gets wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.
"Monsieur, this child belongs to me."
One wonders what the problem is.
I think I would have liked that arrangement myself. There was too much melodrama at home and I was good in school too.
Hahaha, Rafe, I won that book in a writing contest in second grade! Gadzooks, I loved that story...
“It made me wonder - and I still wonder this - how often this actually did, or apparently does, happen.”
In America’s urban armpits, I would bet there are hundreds, if not thousands, of “families” like this. There would have to be.
Loved the “I’m not a doting mother” comment, like that was ever on the table. Whatta piece of shit….
Can't read the article. Where would a 9-year-old get food while living alone?
Is his father a ship captain who left him a chest of gold?
Honestly it sounds like the kid is doing fine. Odd situation but he's getting things done. Why change it all?
Kids these days...
"Tom T. said...
Un-gated version of the article"
Thanks
”Kids like that fly under the radar. We don’t worry about them."
All too true. The authorities, when they do their job, have enough to worry about wig kids who she sgns of physical abuse at home, girls who show signs of sexual abuse (tough luck if you’re a boy), kids who aren’t eating well enough, etc.
The article is paywalled do I don’t know how he paid the rent or bought and prepared food. But good for him!
Apparently the father was entirely uninvolved.
A 9-year-old who has been living alone since he was 7? Or a now 11=year-old who has lived alone since he was 9? Headlines are less informative that provocative.
I also had that book Rafe. It was great. (Probably still is!)
Crack! You're back!
I just read the story - so, his mother, it appears, was paying for the flat and the electricity (though not gas for heat), brought him food every few days, did his laundry, and sometimes took him shopping. But he was on his own to get to school, keep himself clean, eat and clean up after himself.
His mom had moved in with another woman, had a child with her via artificial insemination, and decided that her other two children weren't worth the trouble anymore (the little boy who's the subject of the story was being a pain to her, apparently, objecting to sleeping on the floor, I think it was). So the two boys moved back to the flat their mom had kept.
The older one, 17-18yo, shortly left to move in with his dad. The younger one, the 9yo, just... stayed.
I do think the "mother of the year" comments sound justified based on what the article says. It sounds as if she didn't utterly abandon him, but it also sounds as if she prioritized her new relationship way over her prior obligations, otherwise known as her children.
The mother was around sometimes, to buy food for her son. Are there no parent-teacher conferences at school? And the 11-yo's brother (and that brother's dad) were curiously silent about all of this.
What a resilient character. It's like a Dickens novel.
Let's keep in mind this is France where they abandon their elderly during the summer to go on vaca.
Rafe, thank you for the flashback to the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I loved that book when I was a kid.
I was sitting on the porch five years ago when the "mother" of the section 8 family across the street yelled at her son...you better get yo muthafuckin ass back here!
That's when I decided to move.
The French kid probably has better prospects than the kid across the street did.
Give that kid a ground floor apartment to avoid the noise, an allowance for utilities, and let him continue his success.
I had to read the Mixed-Up Files book in library school (Children's Literature--it was the available elective). Meh.
Some commenters really stretch to fit this story of dysfunctional families into a narrative about The French (petooie!). Vichy? Really?
How is this any different from GenX latch key kids? My husband and his elder brother were pretty much on their own every weekday. Mom and stepdad worked high powered tech jobs (thus long hours) so the boys had to get themselves to the bus stop in the morning for school, and then at the end of the day, a bus ride home, complete any assigned chores and make themselves some sort of a meal. Parents came home quite late and there may/may not have been a dinner meal.
This boy may have felt some sense of relief at being excluded from the drama that was his mother's life - he was being fed, had clean clothes and kept himself well enough to maintain his independence. He was also smart enough to know that going outside would potentially invite unwanted questions and blow the whole situation sky high.
"Loved the “I’m not a doting mother” comment, like that was ever on the table."
I laughed out loud. I guess dad wasn't into "doting" either.
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